In Tunisia President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali took the gap as soon as the people rose against him. He and his family with their buccaneering love for money raided the central bank and fled to Saudi Arabia. Their assets in different parts of the world may have been frozen but they still have quite a considerable loot considering they took with them US$56 billion in solid gold.
In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak took a little longer to surrender. He didn’t skip the country, only going to the beautiful Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik. He and his family were worth US$70 billion. It has been frozen too by countries in which he had laundered the money through apparently legitimate investments.
The common thing about the two long-serving dictators was that they didn’t want to kill their own people. It was a religious thing and also conformed to international humanitarian standards.
In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi has gone against the religious norm and has decided to kill his own people. He has hired mercenaries from neighbouring African countries and reports indicate he is paying them well. A captured soldier of fortune is reported to have revealed that he had been promised US$12 000 for every rebel he killed.
A ship was intercepted in the Mediterranean last week carrying £100 billion worth of Libyan money to finance his effort to reclaim the country. His assets in the West have been frozen. He is known to have property in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The two brother nations have not yet announced what sanctions they are going to impose on these assets, if any.
Of these three scenarios which is likely to play out in Zimbabwe if — which is unlikely at the moment — there is a popular rising?
I can bet it would be the Libyan fiasco, namely civil war. No Zimbabwean would want that. Zimbabwe has gone throw civil war before. The 1970s war of liberation was for all intends and purposes a civil war. It was not simply a war between oppressed blacks and the settler colonialists.
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There were many blacks with interests in Rhodesia and wished the colonial state to continue. Not only that, for the war to have lasted that long it meant the Rhodesian government had co-opted a huge chunk of the black population into its system. It is a fact of history that the bulk of the Rhodesian military machine was made up of black people, some of whom like Phillip Chiyangwa are enjoying the fruits of independence now.
The number of black people who died in that war is still unknown but guestimates put it at 120 000, mostly black people. Ironically whites who died during that war are miniscule.
In the early-to-middle 1980s the country once again plunged into civil war as the new black Zimbabwean regime sought to silence dissent on its road to establishing a one-party state. The Gukurahundi has now been classified genocide. President Mugabe himself, who led the onslaught, has described the period in which 20 000 people in Matabeleland and the Midlands perished at the hands of the North Korean-trained 5 Brigade as a time of madness.That civil war only ended when the targeted Ndebele population led by nationalist stalwart Joshua Nkomo surrendered by signing the peace pact that became known as the Unity Accord in December 1987.
Zimbabweans know that civil war is very likely in Zimbabwe. The country is too polarised and the March 2008 elections showed that Zimbabwe is split almost 50-50 between those for the continuation of the Mugabe rule and those who wish for change. So any popular uprising is likely to meet the same fate as that which is playing out in Libya at the moment. Mugabe supporters will put up a fight and they have the advantage of the national arsenal behind them. It is common knowledge that the military and the police are firmly behind the regime and they would not hesitate to open fire on unarmed civilians – they have done so before.
Now to the Ivorian scenario, almost forgotten now because of events in North Africa; the parallels between the West African country and ours are a plethora. The most important parallel is the lack of respect for the people’s will as reflected in national polls. Ivorians went to the poll in November last year and chose a leader in the name of Alassane Ouattara. His victory is internationally recognised but the incumbent president Luarent Gbagbo has refused to hand over power. Now the country has been plunged into civil war.
A similar scenario played out in Zimbabwe in 2008 when the losing candidate refused to hand over power. The period leading to the June 27 presidential run-off election had all the markings of a civil war. It is estimated that 200 people lost their lives.
If elections are held this year, the result will be much the same as those of 2008 – inconclusive and highly divisive. What is likely is that Zimbabweans will no longer tolerate stolen polls and this may lead to mayhem and a possible civil war. There are too many angry people roaming the country and some of them are becoming increasingly more militant. Calls for secession are getting louder and the possibility of such fringe organisations as the recently-launched Mthwakazi Liberation Front gaining a foothold in Matabeleland is high.
So, with the Libyan and Ivorian scenarios likely to play out in Zimbabwe, what is the way out for the beautiful country?
It’s simple: the Global Political Agreement (GPA) has got to work come hell or Good Friday! All its clauses have to be implemented to the letter and spirit. Negotiators and the principals they represent should shed away their intransigence. Zimbabweans are now seated on a razor’s edge: they pine for a change to democracy, which is slightly different from the so-called “democratic change”.
The time has come when Zimbabweans should know that “change to democracy” does not necessarily equate to “regime change”. It is the processes that drive democracy and the tenets that form its pillars that have been subverted in this country. If these are re-established, and leadership that lives these processes and tenets found, then Zimbabwe would be put back on the rails.
The GPA and its proposed roadmap is a good starting point.
